Approximately 100 Eliot residents filed into the elementary school gymnasium to participate in a question-and-answer session on the proposed project.

Selectmen called in the engineering firm to explain the technical and financial effects of the project, in advance of the June 15 Town Meeting.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Keith Pratt of Underwood Engineering explained that the scope of the price tag on the expansion, $6.5 million, would be exactly the same as the one presented last year. Voters at the time rejected the proposed expansion.

Pratt said that one of the two town pumping stations should be replaced, and the other one upgraded, at a cost of $1.6 million, whether or not the project is approved.

Pratt said the route would connect lots from the Julie Road intersection with State Road, all the way to the existing sewer lines that the Kittery Sewer District owns. Kittery currently charges Eliot $120,000 a year, $40,000 less than it previously did. The 640 Eliot sewer users account for some 11.5 percent of the flow to the Kittery treatment plant.

The current Intermunicipal Agreement allows for 200,000 gallons a day from Eliot. According to Pratt, the Eliot discharge approaches that limit during heavy rainfall. He also said that a new Intermunicipal Agreement has been drafted but not yet adopted by the two towns that would increase the limit to 400,000 gallons per day.

Pratt said $1 million is already available for the project, collected through the tax increment financing district, which he pointed out generates half a million dollars annually. The remainder of the cost, $5.5 million, would be bonded over a 20- or 30-year period.

Pratt said the project would be financially viable if 140 more units hook up to the new line, and generate at least 15,000 gallons of wastewater daily. Ten-thousand gallons would be generated by Eliot Commons, and an additional 30,000 gallons a day would come from a proposed 150-unit senior housing development at the intersection of Bolt Hill Road and Route 236.

Responding to a resident’s question about the number of potential new users, Underwood Engineering representative Phil McDonald said, “There’s no surefire guarantee, but it is good planning.”

The Underwood Engineering proposal recommends adding a capital reserve fund to the project, and rate increases would range as high as 23 percent for users.

Pratt also warned that a possible multimillion dollar Kittery sewer treatment plant upgrade, if mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, could boost rates as high as 60 percent.

Several residents questioned the figures that the engineering firm presented.

John Reed said, “We’re going to have to take this on faith that this will all work out for everybody.” But he also reacted to predicted higher rates, saying, “If I were an existing residential user, I sure as hell wouldn’t vote for it.”

Ken Wood, of Attar Engineering Inc, and an Eliot resident, said that he has offered his existing private sewer line on Bolt Hill Road to the town for $200,000, but has received no response.

He said the new low-pressure force main proposed on the other side of the road won’t handle the extra use, especially if the proposed 150-unit senior housing project is built.

After the meeting, Wood said the diameter of his existing line is wider than the new proposed piping.He noted that several buildings are already hooked up to his line, which he will decommission if a new one is put in.

“If the town takes care of Bolt Hill Road, that’s fine,” he said, “but we won’t accommodate Bolt Hill Road.”Selectman Chairman Michael Moynihan told residents that there would be more community informational meetings before the vote in June.

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